1/2 Stater - Lysimachos Kolchis imitation

Obverse description	Highly stylized and barbarized head of Athena facing right, wearing an Attic helmet rendered in a schematic, abstract manner characteristic of Celtic and Scytho-Celtic coinage. The eye is depicted as a concentric circle or ball, a hallmark of the Kolchis imitation tradition derived from the original Lysimachos stater prototype. The facial features and helmet crest are reduced to geometric forms, reflecting the artistic conventions of the issuing people rather than Hellenistic naturalism.
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Edge	Plain
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Additional information	The Bastarnae occupied a contested zone between the Carpathians and the Black Sea steppe, and their coinage reflects that position exactly — borrowing Lysimachean types that had already been in circulation for over two centuries by the time these imitations were struck. The prototype itself traded on Alexander's image long after both men were dead, a monetary fiction the tribes of the northern Pontic region found persistently useful for cross-cultural exchange. Kolchis imitations of this type are notoriously difficult to attribute with precision, and the Bastarnae designation relies heavily on find-spot archaeology rather than any textual confirmation of tribal minting authority.